Thursday, July 26, 2007

Romancing The O.C. with Orange County Romance Writers of America, a series of podcasts done by my friend and fellow author Jina Bacarr. I didn't get a chance to check out Second Life, but earlier this year I explored something similar in the software used by The Romance Galleria, a site that brings authors and readers together. This is free downloadable software where you can move your avatar from one room of the galleria to another. The rooms include an Exhibit Hall where authors have rooms exhibiting their books to a cafe and a theater where video book trailers play. It was kind of fun to try once, but I've never gone back.

This has been a difficult week for me. I've spent most of it where my internet access was a modem connection on an old computer with no speakers, so I wouldn't have been able to hear the podcasts, and I wouldn't even try downloading videos. Maybe next week will be better.

I discovered YouTube last year when one of my author friends told me about a video book trailer she had done for one of her books. In an instant I was hooked and couldn't rest until I'd made some videos of my own. This is so way cool.

I was extremely impressed by how quickly the videos downloaded on the library computers, much faster than at home on my DSL line. I wouldn't even try doing it on a modem hookup. I had to once, and it took thirty minutes for a three-four minute video to download. That is completely uncool.

Many authors are doing video trailers for their books, or having the trailers made for them by companies like Circle of Seven. I did my own using the free Windows Movie Maker that came with my computer. It's a powerful program, but buggy at times. It can do some cool stuff though.

Here's a link to a book trailer by author Linnea Sinclair who writes great romantic space opera:

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Except for MySpace, I found this week's sites somewhat less satisfying and fun to browse. Too many of them required users to set up an account before being able to use them, and I just don't want to set up that many accounts for sites I may never use again. I guess I'm about at the point of "enough is enough". :D

I did search for Fullerton Public Library and found the FPL YA page, plus Shirley's and Danny's pages. I already have a MySpace page for my writer pseudonym, so I'm familiar with how it works. However, being part-time, I have no interest in setting up a page for my library persona.

I searched on ebooks, a subject that intersts me and found nearly 10,000 hits. Obviously I needed to refine the search a bit.

Then I chose to look for the page of presidential candidate Mike Gravel, whom I have enjoyed listening to during the Democratic debates. He's a "tell it like it is" kind of guy, as is Ron Paul on the Republican side, and I greatly appreciate having a "truth teller" in each party's debates. Can you tell I'm just a little bit jaded where politics are concerned?

Thursday, July 12, 2007

This looks like a great tool, too, and I'd like to "claim" my blog and learn how to tag my posts.

The internet has become so enormous and complex, tools like this can really help people make sense of it, without having to rely on so-called "authorities" who may some private agenda. The web is a wonderful world-wide democracy, and I'd like to see it stay that way. :D

Okay, I have to admit I enjoyed del.icio.us a lot more than technorati.com, even though I never could find the tutorial to watch. I think this has lots of possibilities, and I want to get an account. :D I regularly use three or four computers every week (personal desktops in two homes, my laptop and the information desk computer), so having my bookmarks available to me online would be extremely useful.

Just for fun, I did a search for writing, garnered 187,620 hits! Refining it to "writing+novels" brought it down to 1,384 hits and adding "+romance" narrowed search to 141, which is more like it.